CBS in Chicago weighs in on the practical results of all the delays in benefit decisions – even for the terminally ill, whose cases are supposed to be fast-tracked. Numbers re abstract, real people aren’t.
Laurie Mickelberg is a 49-year-old who needs her Social Security disability benefits now.
She qualifies for them because she is dying of cancer and can no longer work. Government red tape is forcing her and thousands others like her into a waiting period that is so long many will not survive long enough to collect.
Mickelberg receives her chemotherapy treatment, ninety minutes of intravenous drugs fed into her through a port in her chest. The Aurora native is being treated for Stage IV ovarian cancer that has spread to other vital organs.
The mother and grandmother and is too sick to hold a job and says the cancer and the weekly treatments leave her weak. See the full story here: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2017/03/09/2-investigators-disability-system-waits-out-terminally-ill-applicants/